Religious Judaism as opposed to Torah
The fundamental distinction between the religious worldview and the monotheistic worldview of the Torah.
The characterization of Pagan Religious Judaism. The fundamental idea of Pagan Religious Judaism is the idea of pantheism.
In Pagan Religious Judaism, the will of God ultimately can be countered by the decrees of the tzadik. The God of the Torah is limited in power because of supreme gods which are the tzadikim of the cult who can decree and the God of the Torah must obey.
In Pagan Religious Judaism, there's very a fluid boundary between the Divine, the human, and the natural worlds. They blur into one another because they all emerge ultimately from the same primordial Divine stuff. These distinctions between them are soft. So there's no real distinction between the worship of God and the worship of a tzadik (i.e."saint") and even graves of tzadikim. Second, because humans also emerge ultimately from this primordial stuff, there's a confusion of the boundary between the Divine and the human that's common in Pagan Religious Judaism,
Pagan Religious Judaism, is a system of rites. Pagan Religious Judaism cult, is a system of rites that involves a manipulation of objects that are believed to have some kind of inherent power, again, because of their connection to whatever the primordial Divine stuff may be in that tradition. So there's always an element of magic in the Pagan Religious Judaism,. It's seeking through these rituals and manipulations of certain substances to, again, let loose certain powers, set into motion certain forces, that will coerce G-d to be propitiated, for example, or calmed or to act favorably or to vindicate the devotees, and so on. Some of those cultic acts might be defensive or protective. Many of the cultic festivals are keyed in to mythology, the stories of the lives of the tzadikim. Many of the cultic festivals will be reenactments of events in the life of the god/tzadik: a battle that the god had…the death of the god.
One final and very important point, in the polytheistic worldview of Pagan Religious Judaism,, the primordial realm contains the seeds of all being: everything is generated from that realm, good and bad.
On the other hand, the fundamental idea of the Law of Moses, the Oral and Written Law, which receives no systematic formulation but permeates the entire Torah, is a radically new idea of a God who is himself the source of all being- not subject to a tzadik, a God whose will is absolute and sovereign.
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He's not identifiable as Nature or identified with a force of nature. Nature certainly becomes the stage of God's expression of his will. He expresses his will and purpose through forces of nature in the Torah. But nature isn't God himself. He's not identified with it. He's wholly other. He isn't kin to humans in any way either. So there is no blurring, no soft boundary between humans and the Divine. So there's no process by which humans become gods and certainly no process of the reverse as well.
The fundamental distinction between the religious worldview and the monotheistic worldview of the Torah.
The characterization of Pagan Religious Judaism. The fundamental idea of Pagan Religious Judaism is the idea of pantheism.
In Pagan Religious Judaism, the will of God ultimately can be countered by the decrees of the tzadik. The God of the Torah is limited in power because of supreme gods which are the tzadikim of the cult who can decree and the God of the Torah must obey.
In Pagan Religious Judaism, there's very a fluid boundary between the Divine, the human, and the natural worlds. They blur into one another because they all emerge ultimately from the same primordial Divine stuff. These distinctions between them are soft. So there's no real distinction between the worship of God and the worship of a tzadik (i.e."saint") and even graves of tzadikim. Second, because humans also emerge ultimately from this primordial stuff, there's a confusion of the boundary between the Divine and the human that's common in Pagan Religious Judaism,
Pagan Religious Judaism, is a system of rites. Pagan Religious Judaism cult, is a system of rites that involves a manipulation of objects that are believed to have some kind of inherent power, again, because of their connection to whatever the primordial Divine stuff may be in that tradition. So there's always an element of magic in the Pagan Religious Judaism,. It's seeking through these rituals and manipulations of certain substances to, again, let loose certain powers, set into motion certain forces, that will coerce G-d to be propitiated, for example, or calmed or to act favorably or to vindicate the devotees, and so on. Some of those cultic acts might be defensive or protective. Many of the cultic festivals are keyed in to mythology, the stories of the lives of the tzadikim. Many of the cultic festivals will be reenactments of events in the life of the god/tzadik: a battle that the god had…the death of the god.
One final and very important point, in the polytheistic worldview of Pagan Religious Judaism,, the primordial realm contains the seeds of all being: everything is generated from that realm, good and bad.
On the other hand, the fundamental idea of the Law of Moses, the Oral and Written Law, which receives no systematic formulation but permeates the entire Torah, is a radically new idea of a God who is himself the source of all being- not subject to a tzadik, a God whose will is absolute and sovereign.
.
He's not identifiable as Nature or identified with a force of nature. Nature certainly becomes the stage of God's expression of his will. He expresses his will and purpose through forces of nature in the Torah. But nature isn't God himself. He's not identified with it. He's wholly other. He isn't kin to humans in any way either. So there is no blurring, no soft boundary between humans and the Divine. So there's no process by which humans become gods and certainly no process of the reverse as well.
